Research — Running Industry Diversity Coalition (RIDC) (runningdiversity.com)
Juneteenth is a time of reflection and celebration, but also a time of avoidance and timidity. The conflict of addressing the sins of the nation create a range of hidden responses from the two parties involved in the foundation of a holiday addressing the failure of America to protect its most vulnerable people. Americans don’t like to speak about the brokenness of the nation because it eclipses the future potential of the country. Juneteenth was born because slave owners didn’t want to inform their property, they were free. Interestingly, the signed end of slavery is hard to celebrate for many Black folks. I have a family bible so old it shows the name of my great-great fore-parents as being named after their duties. I had an uncle named Lunch. His job as a child was to bring the lunch. I have great, great aunts named A, B because they weren’t given names at all. Those people became sharecroppers and their existence in the 1900s wasn’t any different than slavery. They eventually left to go to Chicago and other northern cities during the Great Migration. I’m barely two generations removed from this.
I tend to avoid discussing race except with my kids who I’ve often had to explain that they have to be the best and they have to be careful when dealing with White folks. This wasn’t more present as a conversation than during the pandemic when racism reared its head in the form of a string of deaths: Ahmaud Arberry Feb. 2020, Breonna Taylor March 2020, George Floyd May 2020.
How does all of this land in the lap of a discussion on work being done by the RIDC and why am I positioning it using music as an introduction? Music is a balm and, in most instances, music is utilized by athletes when training. Very often music tells difficult stories masked by melody. The RDIC helmed by Kiera Smalls provides the running industry with the important work of researching how the industry can improve diversity throughout every aspect of sport, business and community. I have to assume most people haven’t heard of the group, so instead of simply delivering data, an introduction is needed and for Black folks music has always been a vital aspect of protest and struggle for equality. Take a listen to Lupe Fiasco and Mick Jenkins and then the information pulled together over three years by RDIC will hit different.
SHOES by Lupe Fiasco feat. Virgil Abloh
Virgil Abloh carries a dialogue throughout the song “SHOES” from Lupe Fiasco’s quarantine masterpiece album “HOUSE”. The album dropped during the height of social unrest during the pandemic as the world watched George Floyd be murdered by police officers. The depth of sadness and depression around what has always felt like the devaluation of Black life was compounded by the fact that a list of names of Black people murdered by police was a rallying cry. Lupe took sneaker culture and connected it to the protest effort by aligning with Virgil Abloh who spoke throughout the song about the creation of running shoes for Ahmaud Arberry who was murdered by White vigilantes while he was jogging. In the song Virgil and Lupe deliver these lines about the creation and purchase of the fictitious sneaker,
Lupe: I get applause as I step outside the pop-up
The shop resembles the unfinished house he was in before they shot usVirgil: What does that sole look like? It’s soft to run on
But tough enough to withstand the reality of the ground
Or the reality of the context we’re living in, that’s the soul
Let’s just call it black… You know, can withstand multiple beatings by the ground/But it’s tough enough to continue on, that’s the sole
Things You Could Die For If Doing While Black ft. Ben Hixon
Mick Jenkins leads with the hook of the song being mumbled before speaking louder. No names are attached to the lyrics, but the references are clear for those familiar with the immediate history.
I just wanna smoke my weed
I just wanna love my girl
I just wanna praise my God
I just wanna sell my loose cigarettes, nigga
I just wanna do my job
Might wanna go for a jog
Might wanna sleep in my car
Might wanna sleep in my bed
The song has a groove creating a head nod until you recognize what is being stated. Line by line Jenkins delivers a report on murders of Black people in everyday situations:
- Line 1 – Philando Castile murdered by cops 2016
- Line 3 – Nine Black people were gunned down by a White supremacist, while praising in church 2015
- Line 4 – Eric Garner was choked to death by cops while selling cigarettes 2014
- Line 6 – Like Lupe, Jenkins is referring to the murder of Arbery 2020
- Line 7 – Willie McCoy 2019, Rayshard Brooks 2020, Antwan Gilmore 2021, were all killed by police after being found sleeping in their cars.
- Line 8 and Line 2 are references to Breonna Taylor who was gunned down while sleeping in the bed with her boyfriend when police kicked down the door to the wrong apartment.
If it was overwhelming to read the last two sections, then you understand the importance of the RIDC. While it’s not easy to take on such a difficult subject, the team at RIDC has built three reports explaining the need for assistance by local government agencies, sports brands and people to support more diversity in running communities. As a runner who has finally indoctrinated my wife into the sport only to have her explain that she was scared to run in our neighborhood, I didn’t realize my own benefits in being a 6-2, 235lb man. I also hadn’t honestly thought about why she would worry every time I took off and would run six to ten miles in Mississippi. If I have a history of slavery, sharecropping and civil rights struggles in my bloodline, combined with the reality of how many men who look like me were killed while doing everyday things and I can overlook and not think about potential issues for runners more than likely other cultures aren’t thinking about the issues for Black folks in the sport.
Welcome To The Running Industry Diversity Coalition (RIDC)! (runningdiversity.com)
Running Industry vs. US Population
Employer and employee demographics don’t reflect the racial diversity of the US:
● 96% of running industry owners are white, while only 59% of the population is white
● Only 1% of senior management are Black compared to 14% of the US population
● 8% of running industry employees are Hispanic/Latinx, but 19% of the US population is Hispanic/Latinx
lyrics copied from Genius